Climate Education as a Foundation for Achieving the Goals of the Paris Agreement
The importance of Action for Climate Empowerment
December 14th, 2020
By Alvaro, Mujidah & Sarah (ClimAcademy)
On the fifth anniversary of the signing of the Paris Agreement, as part of Care About Climate’s Action Week celebration, we wanted to take a closer look at Action for Climate Empowerment, a critical advancement achieved as part of the Paris Agreement.
Right in the preamble, the Paris Agreement “Affirms the importance of education, training, public awareness, public participation, public access to information and cooperation at all levels on the matters addressed in this agreement”. In Article 11 & 12, it goes deeper into the capacity building needs.
Article 6 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, that is, the document that establishes the UNFCCC as a body to address climate change within the United Nations system, created a mechanism for including civic society engagement in the negotiations. It calls for six areas that should be utilized to engage the public in climate change solutions.
Education
Capacity building
Public awareness
Public access to information,
Public Participation
International Cooperation
After years of referring to this topic as just “Article 6” (of the Framework Convention) many called for this project to get a name, and it was christened Action for Climate Empowerment.
Isabel Kreisler, of EUROCLIMA+ said, “It could really be either: Action for Climate Empowerment, or Empowerment for Climate Action; both are valid” ACE (or ECA!) works to encourage civil society engagement in implementing solutions.
ACE, and the six topics it encompasses, has been recognized by the world’s top Climatologists as an important tool to encourage action. IPCC Reports: “Global Warming of 1.5*C” and “The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate” both clearly state that educational, learning and awareness-building institutions can help strengthen the societal response to climate change.
In Article 11 of the Paris Agreement, capacity building responsibility is passed to the parties, as the education and empowerment needs are very dependent on the national and subnational contexts. Local governments and organizations are called to play a role in this implementation. At the same time, it calls on All Parties to cooperate to enhance capacity building in developing countries through regional, bilateral, or multilateral approaches. This need is greatest in the countries most vulnerable to climate impacts, Mitigation, Adaptation and Loss & Damage implementation will all rely heavily on a well-informed populace.
The UNFCCC Secretariat, as part of the global stock take, will present a “checklist” or diagnostic evaluation, to each of the parties, to determine what measures they are taking to address climate action. The global stock take was established under Article 14 of the Paris Agreement. It serves to measure collective progress toward countries’ NDCs and the overall agreements long-term goals.
It was set to take place for the first time in 2020 (and be repeated every 5 years from then onward), but this has not occurred due to COVID-19.
Alvaro, of Care About Climate, speaks about climate change education at COP25.
Updated NDCs that have incorporated ACE
As part of the stocktaking process, countries are regularly encouraged to update their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement. Climate education is unique in its ability to foster student’s agency and empower them to realize their full potential for change-making, and many at the UNFCCC have called on parties to incorporate ACE into their updated NDCs.
Chile, as COP25 President, has taken the lead on this, adding ACE to their NDC.
They declared that they would develop climate change education in the formal and informal education systems, to empower the people, and generate processes of participation. Chile also commits to generate a citizen empowerment process for an active participation. One way they have already shown their commitment to meeting this goal is their creation of technical schools focused on clean energy (solar and wind) to create a specialized workforce.
Mongolia briefly alludes to ACE in their NDC update, on the topic of Public Health. They intend to “build knowledge and awareness regarding climate change impacts and adverse effects on human health and empower the general public for adopting protective behaviours”. Mongolia also seeks support from other countries in building capacities to disseminate scientific knowledge and information to educate the public on climate change.
Another important example is Italy, who declared last year that environmental education will be mandatory in all Italian schools, from early childhood until high school. The EU has not submitted an updated NDC yet, but we hope that the European Union uses Italy as a model for ACE implementation.
While various countries included in their NDC updates means through which they engaged public stakeholders (other than business/industry interests) into their planning process, few included ACE in their actual commitments. We must note that meetings open to the public and attended by a representative portion of the public is not the same thing.
Brazil, in their NDC, mention a law passed in 2017 that aims to “raise awareness and mobilize society to contribute to the discussion of actions needed to deal with global climate change, in accordance with the National Policy on Climate Change, the UNFCCC and its resulting international agreements, including the Paris Agreement and Brazil's NDC”. The UK consulted with the Climate Change Committee - mostly consisting of research-based institutions, but NGOs were also allowed an opportunity to comment. Norway held a public hearing for stakeholders, and a specific consultation with the Samediggi Nation, one of their country’s most prominent indigenous peoples.
This is not enough, and Care About Climate continues to engage with negotiators and ACE Focal Points throughout the UNFCCC process to encourage adoption as a key driver of long-term sustainability and climate change resilience. Everyone in the world must know the dangers that climate change brings, as well as the opportunities in developing solutions.
Achieving ACE
Part of ACE is getting youth and other local stakeholders’ access to information, and a seat at the table when it comes to decision making. Having a youth perspective in decision making helps decision makers to ask about the long-term effect of their actions & how their actions will affect the schools, playgrounds, and outdoor areas where children like to play.
Climate change education should be integrated in the school curriculum and in informal capacity building activities for all sectors of the community, so that they can be informed and participative decision makers. Schools and other institutions must find ways to effectively teach climate change education, so that students can be better prepared to deal with future climate related challenges. This demands a focus on the kind of learning, critical and creative thinking essentials that will enable students to understand and address the impact of global warming among young people, encourage changes in their attitude and behavior as well as help them adapt to climate change related occurrences. This curriculum needs to have a strong connection with the students' lives, integrating a global, a national-regional, and a local aspect, on the development of teaching-learning activities.
Activities in support of climate change education such as essays, climate groups or school clubs, teaching students how to calculate their carbon footprint and waste reduction should be encouraged to promote action for climate empowerment. Students & young people should also be empowered to embark on activities that will reduce climate change such as speaking to friends, families, and their community members, increasing energy efficiency, reducing water waste, and reducing their consumption of an animal-based diet.
Informal education should not be left out in developing the skills and knowledge required to support the transition to green economies and sustainable, climate-resilient societies in support of ACE.
Informal education should be employed to raise awareness of climate education and promote adaptation measures to address the far-reaching impacts of climate change. This can be achieved through the provision of suitable educational and learning outcomes to informal education, and the development and implementation of climate change adaptation programs.
This kind of education is usually presented as an organized programs and courses, community meetings, awareness, and media campaigns. This ties to the mission of ClimAcademy, the unit of Care About Climate that offers online courses to improve education on climate change adaptation to combat climate change and its impacts.
In addition, our climate envoys are encouraged to embark on climate change-related projects in their communities, supported by the ClimAcademy team.
In both formal and informal education, allowing more opportunities for young people to apply their knowledge and skills through projects and programs including but not limited to field trips and working with learners to develop mitigation, adaptation and resilience plans as required at different localities and providing extensive climate change training for informal educators which include disaster risk reduction management, policy influence as well as the monitoring and evaluation of climate change education programs should be embarked on with immediate urgency.
Barriers to Implementation
Some of the identified barriers include a lack of funding for implementation, as well as institutional reinforcement. There also is no evaluation index for ACE, making it hard to track results, and oftentimes a lack of strategy or long-term planning to ensure the education and public participation, is having an impact on climate ambition. But some examples in Italy and Chile prove that implementing climate change education is possible.
Also, with the advances in online education and impact that the COVID19 pandemic has had on education, we see an opportunity to rethink the education plans and add climate change into the curriculum for incoming students, due to the relation between zoonotic diseases and climate change.
Finally, there is a lack of involvement of critical stakeholders, including public media channels, who could support public access to information. Encouraging media coverage to highlight organizations taking concrete actions, and signposting to organizations on the ground would be useful.
What we are doing to help
Around the world, there is a significant gap in climate education, especially in nations who will experience the first and worst effects of the climate crisis. At its core, ClimAcademy is committed to filling this gap by holding justice and accessibility central in all our work.
Care About Climate’s mission to Educate, Empower & Unite for climate action is intrinsically tied to the ACE portion of the Paris Agreement. Throughout each of our programs, we seek to raise the capacities of our program participants: share resources, research, or skill development exercises. Our programs put young activists on track to become leaders in the climate movement. Our partnerships and engagement with networks such as YOUNGO, PowerShift Network and Climate Action Network have also centered around climate empowerment and education.
ClimAcademy is our online classroom for young activists, in collaboration with Jamaican Environmental Entrepreneurs' Advocacy Network and Banjul Leo Club. ClimAcademy takes our “Climate Envoys”, as we call them from a very basic understanding of climate change to skilled project managers of on-the-ground mobilizations for climate action.
Climate Change education is critical to ensure that every person on earth has the tools and information needed for them to react to this global crisis. Contact Us if you want to be connected to resources for empowering youth to climate action! Or sign up to participate in ClimAcademy!
Written by Alvaro, Mujidah & Sarah from ClimAcademy